International businessman forgoes European retirement and relishes big opportunities in a small seaside city in China. Patrick Whiteley reports.

Retired businessman Michel Humbert is not your average European. While the senior Frenchman's old school friends are perhaps lapping up their retirement years in Burgundy, or under the sunny skies of the Riviera, Humbert is enjoying the time of his life at the little-known Chinese coastal city he has called home for more than a decade.

But if Humbert gets his way, the whole world will know of his beloved Yantai.

Since 2000 he has been busy working with the Yantai government in Eastern China's Shandong province attracting foreign investors. Humbert, who works as a volunteer and is very proud of his French heritage, says it has been the "experience of a lifetime".

"From the very beginning in Taiwan and everywhere in Chinese mainland, I have felt like a member of the family. I felt at home from the very beginning," he says. "No challenge at all un poisson dans l'eau like a fish in a pond."

The simile is apt considering Yantai is Shandong's biggest fishing port and the city's economic growth has been going swimmingly since Humbert and his wife set up residence.

Although Yantai is not as well known as other second-tier cities, the World Bank has ranked it among China's six "golden cities" after surveying 120 Chinese cities and 12,400 manufacturing firms.

"If I compareYantai from whenI first arrived to 2010, it is a totally new city,fully renovated and prosperous but still keepingitshistoric flavor," he says.

"This staggering dynamism was conducive tothestatus of Yantaias the second economic powerinShandong and the 20th in China."

His efforts in luring foreign investors to the region of close to 7 million people have earned him top accolades including the rank of Yantai and Shandong Province Honorary Citizen, and the FriendshipAward, the highest distinction a foreigner can receive in China.

Being awarded the National Friendship Medal in 2005 has special memories because Premier Wen Jiabao and then vice-premier Wu Yi personally presented him the award.

He has alsoreceivedthe titleof "Legion of Honor (Knight)", the highest distinction in France andalso the Silver Medalof France by the French Academy.

And there was another proud moment when he ran with the Olympic torch in the lead-up to the 2008 Beijing Games.

So what are the secrets of his success in China? He says there are many.

"One must be sincere, simple, flexible andserious," he says. "Also one needs to be professional, modest, hardworking and openly share and exchange ideas," adds Humbert, whose vast international business experience has won many friends in a land thirsty for knowledge.

Humbert was born in Lyon, France and after graduating from a leading business school in Paris, he moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to work for a French cosmetic company as assistant manager.

At the same time, he was writing about his South American experiences and sending articles to Progres De Lyon, the leading newspaper of his hometown.

For the next three decades, Humbert worked in other fields including the gas, helium and laser industries and as the years progressed, moved up the corporate ladder, from sales and marketing manager to director.

In 1988 he discovered China, where he worked in China's Taiwan for three years, and a new love affair began.

"My great grandfather set upa chain of textiles shops in Hanoi and Saigon (in Vietnam), a textile plant in Chile and another one in Buenos Aires and he often spoke to me about China," he says.

In the latter part of his career, from 1993 to 1996, Humbert worked in South Korea and during this time discovered Yantai.

"I first came to Yantai for business in 1995and I fell in love with this vast and beautiful coastal city with such huge potential in so many fields," he says.

"I was so happy to settle here whenI washired by the local government, which is extremely dynamic and ambitious."

For the past 10 years, he has been busier than ever, promoting the city to the world and attracting foreign investors.

"Personally, after 10 happy and exciting years in Yantai, my wife andI have decidedto stay here forever ... and we are not alone," he says.

"Every month, we welcome new investors in many different fields, new businessmen, new professors, new doctors, new students all keen tochoose to live and to work here.

"Yantai for them is like stepping stonesand afantasticspringboardfor new achievements andbolstering their lives.

"Except for familyreunions andbusiness meetings, I have never been back working in France. I don't intend to leaveYantai in the future either."

Yantai's expat population is relatively small but Humbert is in the thick of things and ischairman of the Yantai Western Investors Association,which has more than1,000 members.

"At our last meeting we had people from 26countries, such as Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Brazil, Portugal, Croatia, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Poland and more," he says.

"All these investors and businessmenare happy and successful in Yantai. There are large universities, technical colleges and foreign schools and a new modern hospital, such as the French-Chinese Friendship Hospital. Manyforeigners have beenliving in Yantai for the past 10, even 15 years, and they have no intention of leaving thismarvelous place."

When he is not focused on business or meeting new investors at the airport and personally showing the sights and money-making opportunities, Humbert says he enjoys Chinese culture.

"I've naturally come to appreciate Chinese culture - the arts, poetry, painting, calligraphy and especially the Chinese philosophy of Lao Zi and Confucius so deeply explained by the French philosophers Francis Jullien and Cyrille Javary," he says.

"My Greek and Latin 'Humanities' studieshave found a natural echo in Chinese civilization.

"But my modest books of poetry are pale echoes of the glorious Tang poets."

Reflecting on his achievements over the past decade, Humbert turns the topic back to his favorite subject - Yantai. "I worked with the local government and have earned many honors,but I don't deserve these honors.

"They are all due to my Chinese colleagues."

By Patrick Whiteley (China Daily)

(China Daily 01/16/2011 page5)